What's a president to wear? Inauguration style through history

What will Michelle Obama wear to the Inaugural Ball? The fashion press has spent months speculating on this all-important question to no avail -- as of Tuesday, there wasn't even a hint of a clue as to which designer she will favor.

But, ho-hum, her husband, the president-elect, is easier to predict. Barack Obama will wear a business suit for his swearing-in, and for the ball, Women's Wear Daily reports rumors that he'll be wearing a tuxedo from Hart Schaffner Marx, the made-in-America, Chicago-based haberdasher, whose suits Obama favored during the election.

"Who cares what the guys wear anyway!" jokes Mary Lintern, manager of the James A. Garfield National Historic Site in Mentor.

History bears her out. While Lintern tells us that not a lot was written about Garfield's garb on Inauguration Day and night, it just wasn't Garfield whom fashion critics dismissed over the years. Not much coverage was given to the new president's clothes at any point in history.

Still, why should the women bear all the style responsibility? In the interest of goosing the gander, we take a look back at presidential inaugural fashion.

George Washington
Washington dressed down for his 1789 inaugural (in New York), even in an era of flashy embroidered jackets and breeches, said Jean Druesedow, director of the Kent State University Museum. "There was a great deal of concern that he not appear to be a king. Wearing a plain, brown, cloth suit was the democratic thing to do."

James Madison
Fashion-wise, his 1809 inauguration was just another day for Madison. "He only owned one suit at a time, and it was always black," said Marguerite Anders, assistant administrator at the fourth president's museum in Orange, Va. That suit's pants were knee breeches.

Never one to follow a trend, thrifty Madison was called "antiquated" by University of Virginia students when he visited there in 1826. Imagine still wearing short pants when trousers were the thing!

Andrew Jackson
The "People's President" didn't wear a top hat for his walk from his hotel to the Capitol for his 1829 inaugural ceremony. It was an act that showed his solidarity with Americans who could not afford such finery, according to the White House Historical Association.

In mourning after the sudden death of his wife, Rachel, in December, Jackson escaped the crowd of merrymakers breaking china and glassware at the White House reception following his address by leaving through a window.

Ulysses S. Grant
"Cold Cash" is an apt description of the site of Grant's 1869 inaugural ball. No arrangement for heating was made for the Cash Room of the north wing of the U.S. Treasury Department. Guests wore coats and evening wraps throughout the chilly March evening.

James A. Garfield
Northeastern Ohio's favorite son wore a black suit to his inauguration. He purchased a new silk top hat for the occasion.

Garfield had much on his mind, causing one of the greatest orators in the nation to finish writing his "very bland" inaugural address at 2:30 a.m., just hours before his swearing-in on the morning ofMarch 4, 1881, said Mary Lintern, site manager of the Garfield home and museum in Mentor. (He had had a lot of trouble putting his cabinet together.) Still, "the festivities were something else," she said.

The president who would die from an assailant's bullet just six months later wore tails and a white silk tie to his 6,000-guest bash at the new Smithsonian Institution. On the menu: 1,500 pounds of turkey, 100 gallons of oysters, 50 hams and 1,500 cakes.

Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower
Spiffy dresser Truman, who once owned a men's haberdashery in Kansas City, honored tradition with top hat and formal morning dress for his 1949 inauguration. He then donned white tie and tails when he accompanied wife Bess to the evening's events. "He was always nattily dressed," said Randy Sowell, archivist at the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum in Independence, Mo.

However, when it was Eisenhower's turn to be sworn in 1953, the former general let it be known that he'd wear a homburg - the dressy hat choice of the common man. This caused a fashion tiff between Eisenhower and Truman, who would ride to the inaugural with his successor -- by tradition, he was obligated to adopt Ike's dress.

Truman thought Eisenhower's business hat a gauche break with precedent, but said publicly that he wasn't going to get in an argument about it. The flap stopped there. Harry wore a homburg, too.

John F. Kennedy
If Kennedy didn't single-handedly bring down the men's hat industry, the president who usually appeared in public without one certainly contributed to its demise. However, he wore a top hat to his inauguration in 1961 -- the last president to do so. (Eisenhower accompanied JFK to the ceremony. This time, Ike wore a top hat.)

Warren Harding
With the country in a post-World War I recession, budget-minded Harding thought a federally funded inaugural ball would be out of line. He had run on a platform of fiscal responsibility.

Though wealthy friends paid for a ball, the Hardings did not attend. (The 29th president even tried to cancel the inaugural parade, but it was too late. For it, he wore the fashion of the day, a gray English walking suit, short-waist tails with pinstripe pants and top hat.)

The president and his wife, Florence, preferred a house-warming party of sorts. Harding's first presidential order on March 4, 1921, was to open the White House grounds to the curious, but not the grand manse. (Wartime security measures had banned tourists since 1917.)

More than 30,000 took him up on the invitation. "They parked on the flower beds and looked in the windows," said Melinda Gilpin, site manager of his home and museum in Marion.

Lyndon Johnson
Johnson started the since-unbroken custom of presidents to wear business suits to their inaugurations. Following direction from Pearl Mesta, etiquette expert and social consultant to the inaugural committee, he wore a tux to his 1965 ball.

He was also the first president since William Henry Harrison (who took office in 1841) to dance at his inaugural party. Photos show Secret Service agents fruitlessly trying to hold back the crush of dancing couples around LBJ and his wife, Lady Bird, at Washington's National Guard Armory.

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